There's a saying which goes something like "The best way to ruin a good hobby is to turn it into a job." I think there's a lot of truth to that.
I've been building audio electronics for most of my life (started as a young boy), but there have been a lot of changes along the way. At first it was all discrete transistors. Then integrated circuits came along and killed a lot of the fun of designing your own circuit. Soon consumer electronics became too complex for DIY to compete (try a DIY build of an 80's boom-box, incorporating every feature it contained.) Then SMD happened, and DIY builds started to look big, clunky, and limited compared to what you could buy for less money.
Lately we've been able to buy complete modules with PCBs with the SMDs already mounted and soldered. I agree that this is more like "building" your own PC than the old days of hand-soldering every transistor and every resistor. But the huge bonus is that we now have access to much more complex electronics than we could reasonably DIY, such as entire class-D audio power amplifiers for $20.
A few years ago, thanks to an Arduino board, and a tiny little RTC (real time clock) module, I was able to design and build a customized automatic cat-feeder to try to solve a problem specific to one of our cats. Okay, that's definitely not audio, but it was unimaginable when I started in the electronics hobby.
How about all the audio projects built around Raspberry Pi computers? Is it DIY to plug an external USB sound card or an audio "hat" onto a Raspberry Pi board, plop it in a box, load up some software, and make a home audio server? It seems the answer is yes. You don't get to touch a soldering iron, but you do end up with a useful bit of audio electronics.
Luckily for me, one of my other hobbies is actually making music (playing guitar, singing, etc). And DIY electronics still comes in very handy in that context. A lot of commercially manufactured guitar gear is still absurdly overpriced, so there are still products you can DIY for less than you can buy them.
One example: I wanted a battery-powered speaker I could plug an electric guitar and a microphone into, and take down to the park. Products like that are commercially available, but the ones I found were rather ridiculously overpriced (several hundreds of dollars). I slapped together a cheap class D audio power amplifier board, a thrift-store loudspeaker, a cheap small audio mixer, a couple of guitar pedals, and a rechargeable battery, and was able to make something suitable for considerably less money, even though many of the bits and pieces used in it were themselves commercial products.
Sometimes I want a product that doesn't exist on the market at all, but I can design and build it for myself. As a for-instance, I built a very simple guitar pedal JFET "Unbooster". A couple of my guitars have pickups powerful enough that too much signal level becomes an issue; the "Unbooster" has a single JFET acting as buffer, followed by a potentiometer, and a foot-switch. The foot-switch lets you either output the full buffered signal, or a smaller signal tapped off the potentiometer.
Basically, you can drop the level of the guitar by a pre-set amount with a toe-tap: very useful for switching from lead guitar to rhythm guitar during a song, for example.
Another example: during the pandemic I have been limited to playing electric guitar quietly at home in my apartment. A real guitar amp is too loud, so I bought a Fender Mustang Micro (tiny headphone practice guitar amp) which kinda worked, but it has microscopic control buttons that you can barely see while playing, so there is no way to, for example, switch from a clean tone for rhythm guitar to an overdriven tone for lead guitar. My fix was to buy a second Mustang Micro, and build my own custom switching circuit, which lets you change between the two Micros at the tap of a foot-switch. Set one for clean tones, the other for leads, and off you go.
My custom switching circuit also provides 5-volt USB-C power plugs for both Mustang Micros to keep their on-board lithium batteries charged, and, of course, LED indicators to let you know whether you're playing through the clean one (green LED), or the overdriven one (red LED). Basically it takes two Mustang Micro headphone practice amps, and turns them into one pedal-sized two-channel, footswitchable, digital modelling guitar amp with an instrument-level output you can feed to any audio mixer or suitable flat-response powered speaker. I've been using this at our weekly online music jams for months now.
For me, diy audio electronics still serves a purpose, filling remaining niches where nothing suitable (or suitably priced) exists on the commercial market. Those niches continue to close up, but they will never be completely gone, so if you're creative, every now and then a good reason to DIY a circuit comes along.
-Gnobuddy
Innovation is difficult, if it wasn't everyone would be doing it 🙂. I mean to produce something really innovative and then defend it. It was hard enough for Dyson with his vacuum cleaner and he already had money from its early success.
The days when (as an individual) you could earn a living from this stuff are fast disappearing, the market is too small, people are more and more used to plug and play commodities in all walks of life, and fewer people like getting their hands dirty.
Do what you enjoy and make pocket money from it with as little as possible extra work, just selling boards and key components for your designs including matched transistors/valves. Lots of people here seem to have an aversion to ordering boards from fabs, and it lets you keep the gerbers private.
I'm happy ordering boards from fabs and components from Mouser etc., but even if gerbers are available I prefer to buy boards + components from designers because that way I get to pay a little back.
If you want to design an amp there is a gap in the market for consider a single supply, low quiesent current class-D full bridge amplifier designed to run from a wide supply voltage range (48 - 140V) with post filter feedback. There are very few options for people running >12V battery packs who want high power output (wondom, ICEpower). See:
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/single-supply-class-d-modules.65033/
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/ma5332.379537/
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/single-supply-class-d-any-good-ones.206139/
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/ir4301.356497/
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/single-supply-class-d-modules.65033/
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/ma5332.379537/
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/single-supply-class-d-any-good-ones.206139/
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/ir4301.356497/
There are lots of cool audio things that can be made with an Arduino compatible like the Teensy or Dasiy Seed. Both of these have 32 bit power and are catered to the audio / music making market. The first picture shows the sound generation boards from a DIY music synthesizer I made in the early 70's with 1960's IC technology. Each of those round IC chips contain a single gate or flip flop, so lots of them must be used. This synth was polyphonic, but only had one voice.
The "Blue" synthesizer seen in the second picture testing a DIY Eurorack sequencer kit board I had just built, was built in 2016. It is now polyphonic, with stereo output, each output has its own signal path, so it's like two separate synths. It has 49 pots and 4 rotary encoders all multiplexed into a Teensy 3.6 module which feeds a stereo audio adapter module (codec board). The synth I built in the 70's took nearly a year to build. Blue took two weeks. Changing anything on the 70's synth is virtually impossible. When I get bored with Blue, I plug it into a PC, open up the Arduino app, write some code, and flash it into the synth. The entire "sound engine" (third picture) is a Teensy module and a codec board. There are 6 multiplexers to stuff 49 control voltages into two A/D ports, 4 rotary encoders to tune the digital "VCO's" in one cent, or one semitone increments. I wrote some shell code for the pot multiplexers, the encoders, MIDI and CV/gate input, using the Arduino libraries. Everything else is "written" in code by using a drag and drop GUI interface. The most expensive part of this synth is the pots and knobs. The total cost was about $150. The barrier to entry here has never been lower.
Don't go here unless you are ready to do some more guitar (and synthesizer) related DIY.....
https://www.pedalpcb.com/
Attachments
I simply READ post number 21 in this thread which mentions a Fender Mustang Micro, a product that I had no knowledge about, and have no use for. When I opened a new browser window I'm blitzed with ads for the product, mostly by Amazon.......Big Brother IS watching.
I have been preparing for the swap meet at the largest hamfest in the world which is 10 days away. This has involved lots of Google and Ebay searching for data sheets and prices for used junk. Both of these are known to mine your searches, as does Amazon, YouTube and Apple. I know that and expect it. My random searches for everything from kids toys and clothes, classic rock, electronic parts, vintage and modern hot rod cars, strange music, and musical instruments tends to confuse their search engines making their targeted adverts often way off base. I expect ads related to my searches, and maybe even the videos that I watch on YouTube, but come on why do they show me ads for a Bentley SUV? I'm sure that big brother knows enough about my finances, and has seen me mention my 7 year old minivan enough to no better.
I have been preparing for the swap meet at the largest hamfest in the world which is 10 days away. This has involved lots of Google and Ebay searching for data sheets and prices for used junk. Both of these are known to mine your searches, as does Amazon, YouTube and Apple. I know that and expect it. My random searches for everything from kids toys and clothes, classic rock, electronic parts, vintage and modern hot rod cars, strange music, and musical instruments tends to confuse their search engines making their targeted adverts often way off base. I expect ads related to my searches, and maybe even the videos that I watch on YouTube, but come on why do they show me ads for a Bentley SUV? I'm sure that big brother knows enough about my finances, and has seen me mention my 7 year old minivan enough to no better.
I have suspected for some time, that plentiful and readily available audio technology information, and which can be found on this very site for example, has had the intended effect. It has removed much of the audio consumer's technical mystery surrounding the technology, and also provided how-to methodologies toward obtaining more musical sounding home playback. I should think that development of Chinese clone-modules are made commonly possible in-part due to easily found information via the web. Internet accessible information has relieved much (but certainly not all) of the trial-and-error aspect of musical sounding circuit design. The patience for which used to found only among a relatively few dedicated electronics hobbyists prior to the internet.
Yeah - the so called AI in these things is hopeless. On the odd occasion I stop blocking ads just to see what I'm missing ( 😀 ) they are all irrelevant. Even Amazon's in-site suggestions based on my actual purchases are pretty useless! We're safe for now, big brother is dumb.
Jealous of your hamfest... A long time since the last one I went to, nothing worth a visit within a day's driving range though...
Ugh. It absolutely confounds me that we have arrived at this point. Why have governments made so little effort to make pervasive privacy violations illegal?
At any rate, I suspect the Windows OS itself may have a lot to do with some of the spying you're noticing.
I'm running Linux. I use Firefox, with two add-ons: Cookie Autodelete, and uBlock Origin. The first one deletes relevant cookies every time you close a tab. The second one is an ad blocker. Between the two, I never see the sort of ad blitz just described.
In the past, You Tube was able to track me between home and work PCs, though I have never logged in to You Tube and don't have any Google accounts of any sort. After I began using Cookie Autodelete, You Tube no longer seems to be able to track me in this way (I get completely different video offerings at home and work now.) I guess they were using persistent cookies on my home PC to track me to my work PC, and vice versa.
Next step will be to get an IP proxy, but for now, Linux, Firefox, and a few add-ons seem to keep some of the spying at bay.
Since you mentioned DIY synthesizers, I thought you might be interested in this (Circle, bare-metal programming for Raspberry Pi, originally created to design an RPi synth): https://hackaday.com/2022/05/08/fre...etal-programming-environment/#comment-6471054
My programming skills are not at that level, but maybe yours are.
-Gnobuddy
I think a lot of the fun has been sucked out of it by people that instead of constructive commentary chose be massive sphincters spewing nothing but rude, obnoxious, hateful, and mostly wrong diatribe about how you’re an idiot and only they know anything! It’s hard to stay motivated when you can’t say your name without being told you are wrong! I guess they enjoy being like that, shame as they could be helpful rather than a jerk. Just sayn
+1
Depends on your objectives and attitude. Still too many projects and too little time for me.
I used to assemble PCs , that business is now dead as a Dodo. Laptops and smartphones can do so much more conveniently . One can't beat a Chinese final finish product in terms of cosmetic appearances. Class D is a final death nail , as not many are interested in a bulky power hungry amps or large tower speakers with real Veneer finish. , instead its some cheap plastic box and some self adhesive Vinyl . I always hum to myself " Video killed the radio star"
I do have a RPi3 and an RPi4b but I have done little with them. Any of the music synth programs for the PI that I have found on the web don't seem to offer much beyond what I'm doing with the Teensy's. I haven't looked at anything an nearly 2 years though.
Motorola paid for me to get a college degree in computer engineering in 1990. This was the Windows 3.X under DOS era. Programming was done with Borland Turbo C. Computer engineering was a mix of hardware and software. This taught me that despite some strong insistence from Motorola that software writing was not a career path I wanted. Code writing is much like other writing skills including music. Sometimes it's easy and stuff pops into my head faster than I can type. Other times I can sit in front of a screen for days with no useful output. This is not good when you have fixed, often aggressive goals imposed on you. I have never experienced "writers block" with hardware.
I had trouble with the advanced concepts in object oriented programming and C++ in general. I basically concentrated on the stuff I understood and could use. I ditched all the hard stuff and created a language that I worked for me and I called it C--. It served me well for several years including writing and building a full auto test system for a RF transceiver board that controlled a bunch of 80's vintage HP test equipment with a 286 PC running DOS. That auto test system and my mug shot wound up in the Miami Herald newspaper. It seems that blinking lights, computer screens full of data that change by themselves with no operator present impresses newspaper photographers. So does the Dumm Blonde when he is standing on a ladder beating a satellite dish with a wrench in one hand and a police style walkie talkie in the other, but that's a different story and a different newspaper, the Atlanta Journal / Constitution.
I changed departments within Motorola every 2 to 5 years to learn new stuff, and forgot all about C-- once joining the cell phone design group. I did use it again when I joined the research group in the late 2000's and 2010's to create small scale test systems for IC's. This used a Digilent chipKIT Max-32 board which disappeared when National Instruments bought Digilent. This was the first Arduino compatible 32 bit board 10+ years ago. It still has the most usable I/O ports of any Arduino compatible and I still have a few. See data sheet.
Fast forward 20+ years and Microchip's C compiler followed by the Arduino environment comes on the scene. The Microchip C compiler would eat my C-- code with minimal changes, and an Arduino sketch IS written in C--. That's about the best I can do with programming, and I really have no desire to dig deeper into it. I have tried some of those programming tutorials on YouTube, but have never made it through one, so it looks like I will keep my early 90's programming skill set. Fortunately, today there is a lot you can do with those basic skills.
Not saying we should go backwards on purpose, AT ALL, but an "old" tool which worked reliably for years, will still be putting out useful output today.
FWIW I still use 20-30 year old Protel Autotrax to design my Guitar amp and related PCBs, go figure.
Comfortable like old shoes, can design anything I need in a jiffy blindfolded and with both hands tied behind my back.
"Problems?"
* No practical way to go from schematic to PCB artwork
No big deal, in Guitar amps and specially preamps, board layout precedes PCB design always because front panels are typically made out of a long row (40 to 60 cm typical widths) of jacks, pots and switches which must be evenly spaced and where Musician expects them to be, so they are placed first, then components "thrown" as if from a bucket in the free space behind, moved to sensible positions and only then needed traces are placed, completely different to modern procedure but quite similar to old style Bishop Graphics black crepe tape and paste-on shapes which I have used 40 years ago, or India Ink on vellum (architect´s) paper 50 years ago, so no real advantage in an auto placing auto routing software by any means.
And component density is VERY low compared to modern designs, lots of real estate behind those widely spaced pots (one every 30/35 mm)
* Dated unusable Gerbers so no Chinese fabrication possible.
No big deal either, 1:1 size black on white artwork output is enough for me, since I burn my own silkscreens for in-house printing-etching-drilling-coating boards.
Basically through hole, but if an IC or FET is available in SMD only, no big deal, I just add the proper SMD pad footprint and hand solder one or two (or more) ICs as needed.
On the bottom side of board, of course, not a deal killer by any means.
In a nutshell, an early 90s tool still useful today ... not too different from Tubelab´s 90s programming languages 😉
FWIW I still use 20-30 year old Protel Autotrax to design my Guitar amp and related PCBs, go figure.
Comfortable like old shoes, can design anything I need in a jiffy blindfolded and with both hands tied behind my back.
"Problems?"
* No practical way to go from schematic to PCB artwork
No big deal, in Guitar amps and specially preamps, board layout precedes PCB design always because front panels are typically made out of a long row (40 to 60 cm typical widths) of jacks, pots and switches which must be evenly spaced and where Musician expects them to be, so they are placed first, then components "thrown" as if from a bucket in the free space behind, moved to sensible positions and only then needed traces are placed, completely different to modern procedure but quite similar to old style Bishop Graphics black crepe tape and paste-on shapes which I have used 40 years ago, or India Ink on vellum (architect´s) paper 50 years ago, so no real advantage in an auto placing auto routing software by any means.
And component density is VERY low compared to modern designs, lots of real estate behind those widely spaced pots (one every 30/35 mm)
* Dated unusable Gerbers so no Chinese fabrication possible.
No big deal either, 1:1 size black on white artwork output is enough for me, since I burn my own silkscreens for in-house printing-etching-drilling-coating boards.
Basically through hole, but if an IC or FET is available in SMD only, no big deal, I just add the proper SMD pad footprint and hand solder one or two (or more) ICs as needed.
On the bottom side of board, of course, not a deal killer by any means.
In a nutshell, an early 90s tool still useful today ... not too different from Tubelab´s 90s programming languages 😉
I guess it's because I got started on the PCB thing late to the party so to speak, but I just use EasyEDA. They just came out with a "pro" version, too.
Such posters would be a problem if everyone posts correct things. You left out the posters who make extra ordinary claims without extraordinary evidences.